Ephesians 4:25 - 5:2
Proper 14 (19) - Year B
Puns are fun. A pun in any other language is still a pun. This is nothing to quibble about. Let's wrap our tongue around some geeky Greek. It turns out the English word "kind" (4:32 NRSV) sounds like "Christ" in Greek. I hope this isn't Greek to you. So we end up with "be Christ to one another..."
Therefore, imitate the meaning of Christ -- focus on the steadfast kindness of G*D. Imitate the kindness of Christ, the Christ of kindness. Keep at this until, in years to come, your name, also, will be used as a substitute for "kindness." It won't be Tom, Dick or Harry; it will be Kindness, Kindness or Kindness. It won't be Bob and Carol and Ted and Alice; it will be Kindness and Kindness and Kindness and Kindness.
How would our religious life be different if we were known as Kindians instead of Christians?
http://www.kairoscomotion.org/lectionary/2003/august2003.html
Ephesians 4:25-5:2
2 Samuel 18:5-9, 15, 31-33 or 1 Kings 19:4-8
Psalm 130 or Psalm 34:1-8
John 6:35, 41-51
Somehow our desire and greed for life has gone bitterly astray. We run until we are surprised by a noose disguised as a tree; until we fall exhausted of all reserve; until we find ourself in the disinterested grasp of despair; until our waiting only brings forth more waiting.
So it has been for us and for all of our image (read G*D). The imitation of our own image imagines another way beyond the stillness of an overly humid day with a hazy gray sky hanging featureless over our heads.
This alternative presses back against the anger of unmet desire and greed - limiting it to this day, this moment; presses back against our thieving actions until they come out another side as sharing. In shorthand, we "live in love" and shift our experience from claiming others as our daily bread to being such daily bread - unconcerned for cosmic, heavenly authority for so being, and simply believing/claiming/acting eternally in each moment available.
- - -
["-- Who can tell truth from falsehood any more?
I say it, and you feel it in your hearts:
no man or woman on this big small earth."
- e.e. cummings]am I not
but the gene pool
of mother and father
narrowed down
to one option
masquerading
as all other optionsam I not
a feast
for generations to come
opening a broadening way
willing one form
to dive deep
into each next
http://kcmlection.blogspot.com/2007_08_01_archive.html
We can be very cruel in what we say to one another and justify such by claiming we are speaking the truth to our neighbor (see verse 25). By the time we get to verse 32 it becomes clear that the ending bracket to this section is a way of defining truth – being kind (gentle), tenderhearted (sensitive), and forgiving. When these actions are present we know we are also in the presence of truth.
This is not a robust, doctrinaire Christianity that is setting out to make the world in its image. This is an extravagantly loving Christianity that imitates Christ imitating G*D. This imitation is the setting loose of a creative word that attempts to see what we might yet do together that will take us beyond where we have come so far. When a time of conflict arises between these forms of Christianity, we might expect that the doctrinaire will have the power and willingness to use it to shape others. This is often true in the short-run. As has been noted, however, the arc of love is long and persistent. Note how often doctrine needs to be restated, this is evidence of its limitation. There is no limit to an expansive love.
Between the bracket of "truth" and that of "kindness, sensitivity, and forgiveness" any number of examples can be used. It may be about thieves or spouses or drunkards or any of the other behavioral examples Paul uses. These are moveable examples in the midst of brackets about larger categories of truth or reverence or strength or . . . .
http://kcmlection.blogspot.com/2009_08_01_archive.html
We are members of one another. Where do you draw the line on that understanding?
We can affirm that part of being in solidarity with our “in group” is some form of integrity, not breaking our fealty with one another, no overt lying.
A hard question is what we cover over with personal niceness and social conventions regarding our various memberships? When we have multiple identities, we have multiple memberships and it can be amazing the knots that we get tied into when two or more of those memberships come together at the same time. Lies we wouldn’t tell one group if we were only with them, get told in a larger setting. We reveal our ranking of memberships.
With our members we can bank our anger and keep it from flaring. Our sins are manageable, confessable, redeemable. Otherwise, look out.
Can this care of one another cross such boundaries as we have put up between ourselves? Can we imitate G*D’s forgiveness with all of creation, or just our membership group? Can we even hear a challenge to expand our imitation of G*D to those who are strangers?
Hopefully G*D is defined by non-commercial love even when described by ultra-membership oriented reporters. And you?
http://kcmlection.blogspot.com/2012/08/ephesians-425-52.html